♪♪♪ >> There is more than one way to leave a legacy.

For some, it means plaques, monuments, and halls of fame.

But for others, legacy comes from a place more simple.

>> Snip off the ends.

♪♪♪ It's building a tipi shape.

>> The Ford F-150 -- a proud supporter of "A Craftsman's Legacy."

♪♪♪ >> I've got great memories of protecting our house from monsters with my wooden sword and shield, and now I get to meet a real swordsmith.

Kevin Cashen has dedicated his life to uncovering the science behind the swords that built our world.

I'm really excited to get my hands dirty and start making a sword.

Hey, man.

How are you?

I'm Eric Gorges.

>> Hi.

Kevin Cashen.

>> Nice to meet you.

>> Why don't you come on in?

>> Yeah, sounds good.

>> Here we go.

♪♪♪ >> A craftsman battles for perfection, never willing to give in or walk away.

I'm Eric Gorges.

I build custom motorcycles using skills passed on by countless generations before me.

I used to work 9:00 to 5:00, chasing money and titles, and it nearly broke me.

So, I started over.

I decided to work with my hands to feed my soul.

Please join me on a quest to uncover the skills that built our society.

We'll discover what drives the men and women who I call my heroes.

We'll learn their craft and maybe even find some inspiration along the way.

There's a part of you in everything you create, your legacy.

"A Craftsman's Legacy."

♪♪♪ It's got to be sort of fun telling people you're a swordsmith at the Christmas party, eh?

>> [ Laughs ] It's a double-edged sword -- no pun intended.

>> [ Laughing ] Yeah.

>> But at family get-togethers at Christmas parties, you get known as "The Sword Guy" or "The Knife Guy."

People tend to forget your name sometimes.

>> [ Laughs ] How long have you been making swords?

>> Swords not as long, but making blades since I was a child, probably.

Like 10 years old or so, I started making blades and was really fascinated by swords -- stories of knights in shining armor -- you know, King Arthur, the Round Table -- all those sorts of things.

I mean, that starts it.

>> What did you do about it?

Did you try to make some?

Did you make some out of wood?

Did you go right to metal?

>> Actually, I have some scars from some of my friends that got a little eager with the wooden swords... >> [ Laughs ] >> ...and then advanced on to metals, yeah.

Yeah, I remember hammering out the first piece of copper plumbing into a sword blade.

>> Wow.

So at what point did you realize in life that this is what you wanted to do for a living -- like this is what you wanted to be?

>> 'Cause I started to realize swords is gonna be a hard sell, and so I started working with blades, and I sold my first forged blade when I was probably about 18 years old, then trained in bladesmithing until I achieved my Master Bladesmith Rating, and then with that knowledge, I was able to then revisit swords, and with the skill set of a bladesmith, it allowed me to look at swords in museums and collections, original swords, and deconstruct how they were made and rebuild the craft.

>> Really?

>> I noticed that coming up through the craft, that there was a lot of wives' tales and mythology that was spun around it, and some of it sounded a little too fantastic to believe, and so I decided I wanted to do a little bit better.

I wanted to look deeper inside of the steel.

I wanted to understand my material... >> Okay.

>> ...more than the average smith.

By looking inside of the steel and understanding what I was doing, it allowed me to have absolute control over the material.

>> So, even at an early age, your main goal was to become a swordsmith and actually understand historically how -- how these swords were made.

>> Oh, yeah.

As a young man, I was fascinated by medieval history.

The rise and fall of empires rested upon the swordsmith's shoulders -- literally.

I mean, he was one of the most important craftsmen in history, and the materials and the process came later on.

There's a lot of swordmakers, but I wanted to be a swordsmith in that I wanted to do it the way they did it thousands of years ago.

>> "They"?

>> Yeah, the swordsmiths when swordsmiths actually practiced the craft, because it's a dead craft.

With the advent of firearms, there was no need for it anymore in the West.

In the East, in Asian countries, they still have the swordsmithing tradition, but in the West, it was lost, and so I wanted to do it the way they did it back then.

The bladesmith or the swordsmith, that's all he did was forge the sword blade, and then somebody else did the hilting and somebody that was incredibly skilled in precious metalwork did the decoration and the embellishment.

I'm trying to do it all.

>> So, instead of having six master craftsmen, you got to handle all that yourself?

>> Yes.

>> And it's difficult to become a master at all six of those things.

>> Yeah.

Oh, it's frustrating.

I've been to a museum and I've measured a rapier that I really want to re-create, and I get started on it, and then I realize that the silver inlay work is beyond my skill set.

So I have to set this thing down for, like, two or three years and learn a new skill set, and then pick it up again.

It's very frustrating.

>> But it keeps you driven.

>> But it keeps me going.

Yes, yes.

>> There's always, like, that next chapter to look forward to and to delve through.

Most of your swords stay in a collection?

>> People collect them.

I ship them all over the world.

I've had people say that they wanted to be buried with their sword that I made for them.

I go, "Wow."

So, a thousand years from now, history may repeat itself.

We're gonna uncover a sword, but this time my mark will be on it.

>> Wow.

That speaks to your legacy.

That's... [ Laughing ] Oh, man.

Do you see yourself as a craftsman or an artist?

Do you look at yourself that way?

>> I wouldn't say I'm an artist.

I'm a craftsman that has to deal with the art end of it.

>> Do you enjoy that part of it?

>> Absolutely.

Sometimes you don't feel like forging a blade today, but you got to do it.

Sometimes you don't feel like grinding a blade, but you got to do it, but it's always exciting to maybe do some silver wire inlay or to do a little engraving or some carving, and then there's the satisfaction of backing off and seeing what you did.

"Wow!," you know.

>> I am ready to get to work.

Can you do me a favor, though?

You got a microscope here?

>> Yes.

>> You think you could show me a little bit about how metal works?

>> Yes, I can.

>> I've been working with it a long time, but I rarely get to look at it through an actual microscope.

I always just see the pictures.

>> Ah.

Metallurgy -- nobody has to ask me twice.

>> British explorer Sir Richard Burton believed the history of the sword was the history of humanity.

He wrote of its importance.

"From days immemorial, the Queen of Weapons, a creator, a destroyer, carved out history, formed the nations, and shaped the world."

More than 5,000 years ago, the earliest swords were made using a copper-arsenic alloy.

The blade and hilt were cast as one solid piece.

These copper swords were soft and dulled quickly.

The discovery of plentiful and strong iron ore vastly improved quality and allowed for mass production.

Experiments with iron smelting eventually led to the creation of steel, which revolutionized swordsmithing yet again.

Cultures all over the world developed their own sword designs.

A sword has to be strong and flexible so that it can absorb massive shocks in combat and not crack or break.

It needs to be balanced along its length so that it can be wielded effectively.

The sword we'll make today, the Roman spatha, is a straight, long sword that was used in gladiator fights and by cavalrymen on the front lines of battle.

It became a model for Frankish, Saxon, and Merovingian swords.

Swordsmith Kevin Cashen studies ancient swords inside and out to refine his craft.

He merges modern science and understanding of ancient techniques and his expert craftsmanship to create beautiful and authentic historic swords.

>> These are blades that I had the opportunity to get some time to study up close when I visited The British Museum several years ago.

Some of the researchers there at the museum had already done some metallography and analysis work on these blades.

>> So you've got not only, like, dimensional information -- length, cross-section, weight, but you have metallurgical information, too.

>> I have the knowledge with these blades now to create these blades from the inside out, literally, the way they were done.

>> And I'm thinking that's what we're looking at over here.

>> This represents what steel would have been like in a blade like this and how they would have stacked up the iron and the steel within the blades, and that's what you have down this side of the screen.

You have mostly iron.

But to this side of the screen, you get a lot of these dark patches.

>> Uh-huh.

>> That's carbon.

The difference between steel and iron is iron that has been alloyed with carbon is steel.

It's stronger.

>> So that's iron on the left.

>> Iron on the left.

>> Steel on the right.

>> Steel on the right.

And they've welded these pieces together in the forge to create this blade.

>> And do we have, like, modern steel that we could see, also?

>> Yes, yes, yes.

♪♪♪ >> [ Chuckling ] Oh.

That's modern steel?

>> That's modern steel, and you can see the difference.

>> Look at the carbon spread out all over the place, and it's fairly even.

>> Very homogenous.

That's what 2,000 years of metallurgy technology does for you.

>> [ Chuckling ] Wow.

That's crazy!

So we're gonna make an 1,800-year-old sword, a spatha.

>> Using modern steel, because I want to bring out the properties that we can take advantage of from all those years of advancement... >> All right.

>> ...but get the same effect visually.

>> Well, I say we head back to the forge.

>> Yep, sounds very good.

>> All right, buddy.

[ Claps and rubs hands ] [ Forge whooshing ] It's a pretty cozy little furnace room you've got here.

>> Yeah, yeah, well, Michigan winter, it's kind of nice sometimes to forge.

>> So, what do we got going on here?

>> Okay.

For our sword, I'm using modern alloys that are not too far off from the ancestor steels, but some of the layers have a little bit of a nickel, which is gonna give it a very nice, high contrast when we're done with the blade.

>> So these are different not only in thickness, but in what the steel is?

>> Two different alloys are going together to create the pattern, yes, and they've been tack-welded together with a welder, and this billet's going to go into the forge and be heated up to a fairly high temperature, and then brought out, we're going to hammer it solid... >> Oh, okay.

>> ...and that's going to cause the layers to fuse into one solid bar, and then we're going to draw it out to, say, oh, maybe four times its length... >> Really?

>> ...and then we're going to pattern it with some various techniques to bring out some character in our sword blade.

>> All right.

Cool.

So where do we get started?

>> Okay, well, the first thing we do is we got to get this hot.

>> Bring it up.

>> Okay.

>> How long will it take to come up to temperature?

>> 10 minutes.

It'll be in the 2,300-degree-Fahrenheit range.

As it comes up, I'm going to get some borax on it so we don't have any oxides forming before it finally is ready to weld.

♪♪♪ Just pull it out over the funnel and sprinkle it on.

There you go.

>> Is that enough?

>> Yeah, that's more than enough.

There we go.

>> [ Speaks indistinctly ] >> Anytime.

♪♪♪ Try to keep the handle level with the die, and then it won't bend back and forth.

>> How's that?

>> Eventually you'll break your handle off if you keep bending it back and forth.

>> How's that?

>> That's fine.

Very good.

Very good.

>> Beautiful.

>> Here we go.

♪♪♪ Coming out.

♪♪♪ There you go.

Twist it up.

>> Now, should I be counting how many times I'm twisting?

>> Yeah, you can.

I also visually make sure.

It's in order to keep it even between the two bars.

>> And you want to keep it straight, right?

>> Yeah, as straight as possible -- yeah, up and down.

Otherwise, it gets difficult to twist.

Okay.

You reach a certain point, and then you don't twist much more.

It gets really easy to twist, and then that's really bad.

>> And why are we twisting it?

>> We are twisting it -- Oh.

We're twisting it to develop the pattern for the core of the sword.

One of these bars twisted clockwise, the other bar twisted counterclockwise, and then when they're put side by side in the core of the sword, they'll form a beautiful chevron pattern.

>> Oh, nice.

And this you prepped for us ahead of time.

>> Yes.

>> We've got three different pieces of metal here.

>> Two core pieces are the twists... >> Those are the twists.

>> ...the twists that we've done, and then this is a flat pattern that has not been twisted that'll be used for the edge that is drawn out to even longer so that it can wrap all the way around the outside.

>> Okay.

All right.

And it's the same make-up as far as the alloy goes as the inside.

It just hasn't been twisted to introduce a pattern.

>> Correct.

I've put these bands on here to hold it into position while we keep things aligned as we tack these things together in the forge, and these will move out of the way as I progress.

>> They're just temporary.

>> Exactly.

>> Okay.

After this, we should have something that looks quite a bit like a sword, right?

>> Yeah.

Once this is all welded up, we'll start drawing it out, and it'll definitely start looking like a sword.

>> Right.

>> Now, in preparation for that, I have a template that we'll actually be forging to... >> Ohh.

>> ...so that we have a plan to work with here.

>> That makes sense.

>> Yes.

>> Let's get to it.

♪♪♪ >> There you go.

♪♪♪ >> See, it's a little wider here, and it's actually a little wider than the template itself, so what we want to do is draw it out, narrow it up so that it'll have the freedom to widen out when we put the edge bevels in.

♪♪♪ >> And here you're just squaring it up... >> Yeah.

>> ...getting it straight.

>> Yeah... or as straight as I can get it.

There we go.

>> Right on.

And you can see the little chevron pattern in there.

>> Yep.

Yeah, it's already starting to show through in the scale... >> Yeah.

>> ...on this side.

>> So, where do we go from here?

>> Now we clean it up and start grinding.

[ Machine whirring ] ♪♪♪ This is the exciting part.

Over in the forging side is where it looks like a sword.

Now it starts to feel like a sword, and if you do it right, and you follow these measurements, towards the end, it gets very exciting because you start to feel what an 1,800-year-old sword felt like.

>> Oh, that's cool.

>> Once again, we're back with our template.

This template's very useful at the grinder because I've taken measurements from swords of this period and transferred it, every inch here, that this is going to be one of our favorite tools while we're grinding.

>> So you're measuring the thickness.

>> The thickness -- exactly.

Yeah.

>> Okay.

And what's the center line represent?

>> The center line, you want to keep a nice, straight center ridge to guide your hand while you're grinding, so I scribe the center line, and we leave that center line.

We don't want to grind away.

If we grind it away, that means we ground too much.

This grinder I built myself, and I've evolved my method of grinding to the grinder, and the grinder's evolved along with me.

We're going to just come up here, and we're going to lay in with pressure on this coarser grinding belt.

We're gonna draw this across using the tool rest to support so we can get a nice, even grind line across, and we'll start taking this metal off.

>> Ah, okay.

>> But on every pass, we're gonna check and see what our progress is.

>> Gotcha.

>> Yeah.

We don't want to get carried away.

Once you get a grind line established, you can come in here with this push stick and apply a little pressure.

Then lay into it.

Now, when you get to the tip of the sword, avoid the temptation to lift and flip it off.

>> Okay.

>> Just let it ride off.

>> Leave the tip thick.

>> Okay.

>> Number-one beginner's mistake, they overgrind the tip.

>> Ah.

All right.

>> So... ♪♪♪ Now let it ride.

Find the grind line... and then apply the pressure and grind.

♪♪♪ >> Too much?

>> Yeah, that was all at the end.

♪♪♪ >> So we want to be around 4-8 there, 4-7 -- somewhere around there?

>> Yep.

And it's coming right in at that.

>> Right on.

>> Yep.

Now it feels like a sword.

[ Laughs ] >> Nice.

>> Now it's time to do what I call is breathing the soul into the sword.

So the next step is to heat it up when it's glowing again.

It's going to be quenched into oil, and that will harden the blade.

It'll be strong, and it will hold an edge.

>> Oh, okay.

>> But then you run into the risk of the sword blade breaking because, with hardness, it could be brittle.

The next step would be after the hardening, we will temper, which is heating it up again 450 degrees or so, and this will relax the steel a bit and cause it to be a little tougher so that now the sword won't break.

>> Ah, okay.

And then we'll be ready for battle.

>> Not quite ready for battle, actually.

After hardening and tempering, then the real drudgery of custom swordmaking comes in, and that's the hand polishing.

>> Oh.

But that's where everything obviously shines.

You have to be a little more aggressive starting out.

>> I gotcha.

♪♪♪ >> After the polish, we're going to use a mild etchant, and it's going to react differently to the two different steels, and it's going to cause that pattern that we put in there to really pop out, and you'll be able to see it on the blade.

♪♪♪ >> This is beautiful.

This pattern weld design, it is really, really cool.

It's something else, man.

So, what's left here?

>> Well, the only thing left now is to put the hilt on, the human interface, and then it's a sword.

>> All right.

So let me hand you that.

>> Okay.

>> What kind of components is the hilt made of?

>> Many of the hilts on this period and style of sword were wooden or some material similar to that.

I'm going to reinforce it a bit with a bronze spacer that we'll slide on first.

>> Okay.

And what does that do?

>> And that will reinforce it so that the wooden portion of it is not slamming against the shoulders of the blade.

>> Okay.

>> And then a wooden replica of the spatha of our period.

>> All right.

That's beautiful.

>> And then the final is a bronze peen nut that we'll slide on.

>> All right.

>> And then from here, we peen the tang down into that and pull this whole thing together.

They didn't have threads or bolts back then, but this was as strong, if not stronger -- >> Sure.

>> ...to hold things together.

So let's put this thing together.

♪♪♪ >> All right.

>> There it is.

>> Man, that looks good.

♪♪♪ Holy smoke.

>> And there we go -- a spatha.

>> Wow.

Look at that.

This is just beautiful -- absolutely beautiful.

Thank you so much.

>> You're very welcome.

>> I had a great time, man.

I learned a ton.

♪♪♪ I never thought about all the different craftsmen involved in building a single sword in the past.

That makes me appreciate the time and effort Kevin has invested into learning these different aspects even more.

It's that never-ending quest to become better each day that drives us, and Kevin's work has opened the doors for so many future craftsmen.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ >> There is more than one way to leave a legacy.

For some, it means plaques, monuments, and halls of fame.

But for others, legacy comes from a place more simple.

>> Snip off the ends.

♪♪♪ It's building a tipi shape.

>> The Ford F-150 -- a proud supporter of "A Craftsman's Legacy."

♪♪♪ >> To discover more about "A Craftsman's Legacy," and the craftsmen we feature, please visit our website.

And you can also follow us on social media through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.